You Make Me Want to Cry Alone in the Dark

Alkaline Trio

Crimson 

2005, Vagrant.  

Produced by Jerry Finn

Dan Andriano - bass, vocals

Matt Skiba - guitar, vocals

Derek Grant - drums

Singles:

• Time to Waste/ We can Never Break Up/ Dont Say you Wont

• Mercy Me/ Buried

• Burn

There was a time when I was into horror punk.  Punk with a creepy dark edge to it, like the Misfits, the HorrorPops, AFI, and Alkaline Trio.  

I want to start out by saying that I like this band, probably more than they deserve.  They're from Chicago, I have family there.  They have a cool three-piece band with two singers whose voices compliment each other.  And for the most part, they are capable of writing pretty decent poppy punk songs.  

The album prior to this is called Good Mourning, and I cant say enough good things about that album.  Perhaps it will make an appearance on this blog in the future.  As far as pop-punk goes, Alkaline Trio definitely knew how to do this right, catchy tracks with singable melodies and angsty lines, but with some maturity, unlike Blink 182 who still thinks they're 16, and they did it without going too far into the woe-is-me-emo-hipster-realm.  

However, Crimson let me down.  The first track, also the first single, and the first video, Time to Waste, is fantastic!  and then the rest of the album disappoints.  I probably should have known just by looking at the cover.  Alkaline Trio had fallen into the same trap as Blink 182!  They became sentimental and slipped into the trendy emo void, as evident by the black and white cover of half a woman's sad face, and half of a nicely dressed, but miserable looking dude.  Suddenly I was listening to a morbid version of Jimmy Eat World.  I hated every track on here except for Time to Waste and Back to Hell.  Potentially good songs like Sadie are ruined when they stop the flow of the song to add spoken word nonsense.  

Even the title of the album is lame.  I heard that it was almost titled Church and Destroy.  They should have gone with that, way more interesting than Crimson.  

Skip this one...  but buy Time to Waste and Back to Hell on iTunes or something.  Agony and Irony (2008) is better.  Good Mourning (2003) is the best.  and if you can find the BYO split they did with HotWaterMusic, get it.  

The Boss of Americana

Bruce Springsteen

Ghost of Tom Joad 

1995. Columbia  

Produced by Chuck Plotkin

Bruce Springsteen - guitar, keyboards, vocals, harmonica

Danny Federici - accordian, keyboards

Gary Mallaber - drums

Garry Tallent - bass

Jim Hanson - bass

Marty Rifkin - pedal steel guitar

Soozie Tyrell - violin, vocals

Lisa Lowell - vocals

Patti Scialfa - vocals

Singles: 

• The Ghost of Tom Joad

This is the second album in the acoustic folk trilogy from Bruce Springsteen, following his 1982 Nebraska and preceding his 2002 Devils and Dust.  This is my favorite album from the Boss.  It may be because I stumbled into it in 1997 after hearing Rage Against the Machine cover it in their Metal/HipHop style, and it might be because I have a thing for acoustic country/folk songs.  The overall sound could be summed up as full of despair.  However, I believe this is an over simplified and unjust judgement.  True, the subject matter of the songs is modern dustbowl Americana, but I think under all the dust and grime and sense of despair, there is a message of hope, and beauty in the plain and mundane.  And I like that the most.  

Punks Not Dead... its still twitching

Agnostic Front

Somethings Gotta Give 

1998, Epitaph  

Produced by Billy Milano

Roger Miret - vocals

Vinnie Stigma - guitar

Rob Kabula - bass

Jim Colletti - drums

Tim Armstrong, Lars Fredericksen, Jimmy Gestapo - backing vocals

Singles:

• Gotta Go (Punkorama 4)

Roger Miret had some success after this with the Disasters, and of course, Tim and Lars from Rancid and Jimmy Gestapo of Murphys Law add their vocal talents.  This album has become a time capsule... 

Agnostic Front started in 1980, a band from that American Hardcore scene that Paul Rachman, Henry Rollins, and Fat Mike like to talk about.  After that scene fell apart, they continued on and eventually helped start the NY/HC era in the late '80s and early '90s along with Ray Beez from Warzone.  

This album was their return to the sound and scene that they helped create in New York, and sadly, one of the last good examples of a genre that petered out by the end of the decade.  The punk/metal fused genre with socially conscious overtones bridged the genre of Victory Records with that American Hardcore scene from the early '80s.

The street punk hardcore sound on this album is fantastic, no one does it better, I believe, and no one has been able to do it as well since.  Something for every punk rock kid's collection.

British Folk Girls are Cute

Laura Marling: 

I Speak Because I Can 

2010. Virgin Records 

Produced by Ethan Johns

Laura Marling - guitar, voice

Marcus Mumford - drums

Winston Marshall - banjo

Ted Dwane - double bass

Tom Hobden - fiddle

Ruth De Turberville - cello

Pete Roe - keyboards

Singles: 

• Goodbye England

• Devil's Spoke

• Rambling Man

I bought this album after I heard her cover of The Blues Run the Game on the radio.  I actually searched pretty hard to find out who she was and then which album has this particular song on it.  I discovered that the recording was done for an EP that I couldn't get a hold of.  So, I bought this album instead.  Laura Marling may be familiar from her work with Jonah and the Whale, or Mumford and Sons.  If these don't sound familiar, congratulations, you aren't a hipster, or indie music douche.  Marling is British folk.  There isn't anything else to say here.  The beauty of sound is simple, her voice needing not much aide.  This reminds me of Steel-eye Span, and Fairport Convention, only without excess instrumentation.  If quiet yet strong folk is what you desire, look no further.

A new project

I recently have a lot of time on my hands.  I've decided, after staring at my piles of CDs in my living room, that I ought to give them all a listen.  Partly because I have nothing better to do, and partly because, I think I've forgotten what I actually have.  So, from now on...  or at least for quite awhile, I will be listening to, learning about, and giving reviews for the music I find in my pile.
Everyday, I plan to pick out an album from the pile, give them a complete listen, and then add a post concerning what I've heard and perhaps some personal bits I can remember from purchasing the album, or whatever.  Enjoy.

Spin Doctors.  

Pocket Full of Kryptonite 

1991, Epic records.  

Produced by Peter Denenberg/Frankie LaRocka

Chris Barron - vocals

Aaron Comess - drums, percussion, Hammond organ, vocals

Eric Schenkman - guitar, piano

Mark White - bass

featuring John Popper on harmonica and John Bush on percussion

Singles:

• Jimmy Olsen’s Blues/Little Miss Cant be Wrong
• Jimmy Olsen’s Blues/ Yo Mama’s a Pajama
• Little Miss Cant be Wrong/ What Time is it?
• Two Princes/ Yo Mama’s a Pajama/ Little Miss Cant be Wrong
• Two Princes/ Off my Line/ Rosetta Stone
• What Time is it?/ Two Princes

               
Part of the jam band emergence from New York in the '80s and '90s, The Spin Doctors, fronted by Chris Barron, debuted their sound on this album.  A mix of blues and funk, and classic rock frames Barron’s great big voice.  Despite some silly uses of sound effects like ringing alarms clocks and phone tones, which were the fad at the time (early '90s), the album as a whole is excellent.  The singles are catchy, and proved that this particular music scene was radio worthy.  This is a complete album, no filler, and deserves to be in every rock collection.  It seems to pop up in just about everyone’s music pile anyway.  It has become a classic.  The downside is realizing that, partly due to Chris Barron's battle with throat cancer, the band disappeared after such a strong debut.